


right in front of me

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: “Hey, Rans?” Holster says into the dark one night.Rans whispers, “Yeah?” and Holster swallows.“Wanna fuck?”He says it casually enough. He’s expecting a hard intake of breath, some sign that Ransom was about to say no but wanted to let him down easy. Best bros don’t do this. And he wouldn’t have asked, except it’s been awhile. He wouldn’t have asked, except he spent most of their last threesome looking at Rans and not April, curious, wondering what Rans would sound like if Holster had his mouth on him instead of her.He wouldn’t have asked, except he dearly wants to find out.“Yeah, why not,” Ransom says musingly._________________________This one's another off a prompt list! This time it was "I told you not to fall in love with me + holster/literally anyone u want?" Holster's POV :)
Relationships: Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi
Comments: 37
Kudos: 232





	right in front of me

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's a link to that prompt list](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/post/614143551190843392/prompt-list-2)

________________________

The first time, it happens the way it does because Holster has always wanted more than what he has, and Ransom has always indulged. There’s hard evidence of precedent. The Great FroYo Event of 2014. All the times Ransom left his show tunes on the kegster playlists. Every threesome — four — they’ve ever had. This shouldn’t be any different.

“Hey, Rans?” Holster says into the dark one night. 

Rans whispers, “Yeah?” and Holster swallows.

“Wanna fuck?”

He says it casually enough. He’s expecting a hard intake of breath, some sign that Ransom was about to say no but wanted to let him down easy. Best bros don’t do this. And he wouldn’t have asked, except it’s been awhile. He wouldn’t have asked, except he spent most of their last threesome looking at Rans and not April, curious, wondering what Rans would sound like if Holster had his mouth on him instead of her. 

He wouldn’t have asked, except he dearly wants to find out.

“Yeah, why not,” Ransom says musingly. He climbs down the ladder and is kissing Holster almost before Holster registers that as a  _ yes. _

“Wait,” Holster gasps. Ransom pulls away and looks at him expectantly. “Really?”

Ransom rolls his eyes. “Really. You’re not allowed to ‘no homo’ me, bro,” he says. “This was your idea.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“Then shut up,” Rans whispers, “and let me kiss you.”

Holster has always been weak for that. He shuts up, except for when Ransom takes him into his hand. Then he has no other option than to say his name over and over until his voice breaks on it.

____________

They talk about it in the morning over breakfast. No one else is in the kitchen; this is the benefit of having breakfast at 2pm, when even Bitty is pretending to do homework in his room. They still talk around it.

“So,” Holster says, boiling four eggs. “That was a good — skirmish last night.”

Ransom smirks. “A real donnybrook, huh. Bench clearer.”

“You’re surprisingly good at throwing down.” Holster pokes one of the eggs with a wooden spoon to avoid looking at him. “Wasn’t expecting you to drop the gloves so fast.”

“It’s easier when you got your d-man backing you up,” Ransom says. 

Holster doesn’t look at him, but he sounds like he means it. It gives him the courage to say:

“So if — if I needed help like that again, would you have my back?”

He holds onto the spoon so tightly that it digs into his palm. It wouldn’t break him if Rans said no. He really just wanted — once. Just once. And Rans hadn’t looked at him like he was something that crawled up from the locker room shower drain, so. That’s heartening. This is still new territory for them, though. He still doesn’t turn around.

“Only if you ask me that,” Ransom says, “saying what you really mean.”

Holster sighs. “Figured out I like being told what to do?”

When Rans speaks next, amusement softens his words. “You’ve always been easy to read, Holtzy.”

Holster turns around. Ransom’s looking at him with a smile playing around his lips, but his eyes are as serious as tie game with thirty seconds left and penalties on both sides. 

“We’re gonna need ground rules,” Holster says. His timer goes off; he spoons the eggs from the pot into a bowl of cool water. 

“Okay,” Ransom says. “Um. After kegsters is fine, after games is fine, after really hard tests is fine.”

Holster says, “Tests get you hot?” and Ransom shoves him lightly.

“Stress relief. Also, yes. Your turn.”

“No bullshit songs in the background,” he says. “I don’t wanna fuck you with, like, Justin Bieber playing.”

“What about Flo Rida?” Ransom says, with a voice that seems  _ just _ this side of casual to actually be casual. Holster stares at him.

“Shit, bro. Who are you?”

Ransom doesn’t blush, but his shoulders tense the way they do when he’s embarrassed. “Shut up, this is a safe space.”

“Yeah, but damn.” Holster shakes his head. “Definitely depends on which one.”

They go back and forth like this until Holster’s eggs are totally peeled and Ransom’s done fiddling with his cereal. In their own room or the hotel during roadies, no one else’s. They’ll keep it from the team; fines would be a bitch, Ransom says, and anyway they’ll be too nosy about it. Holster brings up who has to buy the lube and condoms if they go that far, which spawns an argument over who owes who money for Annie’s and Jerry’s. It’s so familiar a debate that Holster smiles during it.

“What about if we want to hook up with other people during this?” he says, although the odds of him wanting someone else feels so slim when he can have any piece of Ransom. 

Ransom twists his lip. “You mean like, if we have a one night stand during this? Or, like, dating?”

“Either?” Holster frowns. “I mean obviously we’d stop if someone started dating someone. But casual hookups, I mean.”

“I don’t see too much of a problem with that?” Ransom says, and it sounds like a question. Holster shrugs. “Yeah, I mean. If we use protection and get tested after, I think that’s fine?”

“Yeah no, that’s what I was thinking,” Holster says. “And no getting jealous either.”

Ransom smiles. “Definitely not. And, Holtzy?” 

He rests his hand on Holster’s bicep, and if they hadn’t just agreed to only hookup in their room, Holster would say  _ can I blow you _ at the look on his face. It’s halfway between seductive and mischievous, this look. It’s unfair at how well Ransom wears it.

Holster says, “Yeah?”

“You’re not allowed to fall in love with me, okay?”

Holster rolls his eyes. “There’s no way I could commit to Flo Rida sex for the rest of my life. You’re safe.”

This turns into an argument over who the best artist to have sex to is and how “God, no, fuck you, it’s no one who was in a Broadway musical” and doesn’t stop until they’re back in their room and Holster has Rans too breathless to continue.

____________

It feels like it shouldn’t be normal after something like this, but it is. He’s still Holster. Ransom’s still Ransom. They still walk to class together and argue together and throw the dopest parties this side of the country. He still knows how Ransom’s going to react if he says some shit about the LAX bros — “Fuuuuuck the LAX bros. Also fuck their jerseys, totally ripped off ours.” — and they plan a fantastic, balls-to-the-walls water balloon prank that only fails because Jack tells them not to, but then only succeeds because Shitty helps them anyway. Their passes connect on the ice. They celly together. Nothing’s changed.

Aside from now, when Holster looks at Rans and sees that Rans was looking at him first, he gets butterflies. Ransom leaves him little notes now and then like  _ good luck on your test :)  _ and  _ you left your shit all over my desk Holster why _ and  _ can’t wait to kiss you later _ and they all feel like something they’re not supposed to have. Little glimpses at what something more permanent would mean.

He keeps the notes tucked in his desk. It makes Ransom smile to see that he’s still holding onto them, so he makes a show of it every time he moves one in. Soon he has to clear out a drawer for them. Not so much because there are so many, but because he needs them to be separate. Safe. Something to look at when he wants to remember this.

____________

The third time it happens, it happens because they just miserably, spectacularly lost against Yale. It’s less of a verbal conversation and more in the little touches between them after the game: Holster’s hand on Ransom’s knee in the locker room. Ransom mussing Holster’s hair. Holster, breath held tight in his chest, wiping away a drop of sweat at Ransom’s hairline.

And then, in their room: kissing in the shower, Holster holding them both in his hand, Ransom almost leaving nail marks against Holster’s waist.

And then, in their bed: Ransom beneath him, asking him to  _ just fuck it out of me okay, please, _ fingers on Holster’s hips, their travel lube on the bedside table.

And then: Ransom pulling him closer.

And then: Holster watching him come apart, talking him through it, kissing until they’re both so close to being a mess.

And then: Holster, staring, stuck on the shape Ransom’s mouth makes when he says his name.

And then and then and then— 

____________

It hits Holster sometime after the fourth or fifth time that he’s a little too aware of Ransom outside of their room and off the ice for it not to mean something. He realizes this during a study party with Lardo, when he feels more than sees Ransom crawl under the table. He realizes this during a MarioKart party with most of the team, when he’s so hyper aware of Ransom’s shoulder resting against his knee that he loses for the first time in three years, and to fucking  _ Jack _ of all people. He realizes this when he hops up to follow Ransom out of the room, even though Ransom’s just getting another beer.

“You good, bro?” Ransom asks, handing him a beer.

Holster jumps. He unscrews the cap and takes a sip, desperately trying to remember how he normally drinks beer. “Yeah, why—?”

Ransom shrugs. “I dunno. You seem a little tense.” He looks around carefully, then lowers his voice and leans in. Holster holds onto the fridge to keep from losing his balance. “I could help with that later, if you want.”

“Help with what?” Lardo says, ducking under Holster’s arm. “The popcorn? Wow, thanks Rans, you’re so helpful. Goodness. Wife this man up, he cooks.”

Holster gives him an apologetic look before heading back into the living room, unwilling to be given something to do. He thinks Lardo glances at him and then at Rans, and then back again, as he goes. 

He doesn’t want to analyze her gaze. He tells himself, as he loses again — to Nursey, and this is worse for the fact that Nursey seems torn between apologizing and preening — that it doesn’t mean anything. 

Later when they’re all gone it means something. Later, he’s on his back and Ransom is between his legs, and it means something. Holster could build a house out of these moments, to weave them around him until that’s all he can see. It makes him want to sing. Musicals have revolved around less. 

“Did that — did that help?” Ransom asks breathlessly.

Holster smiles at him weakly, content in the knowledge that this is normal for him. Ransom usually chirps him for how long it takes him to get himself back together afterwards.

He says, “Yeah,” and Rans smiles at him. Holster can’t tell if his smile is a normal one or not. 

“C’mere,” he says. He flails a hand out until Ransom takes it, kissing his way up Holster’s body. Holster delicately cups his face in his hands. Rans lets him. His smile fades.

“What’s up,” Rans says softly. 

This means something too; this feels like a moment where he could change things, maybe see if it means something to Ransom, too. It feels too big to look at closely. 

Holster doesn’t say anything. He tilts Ransom’s face toward his. The kiss is long, and slow, and lazy, and it means something. He can’t tell if he wants it to.

____________

“What’re you doing,” Lardo says bluntly after practice. She is so short, but right now? Right now she seems to tower over him.

“Filling my waterbottle,” Holster says, because it’s a truth. 

She crosses her arms. “You know what I mean.”

He knows what she means. “What do you mean.”

“I mean,” she says, narrowing her eyes, “what’re you and Rans doing. Or, why are you doing Rans. Or—”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I know what you mean.”

She gives him enough time to cap his waterbottle before speaking again. “Then you know he’s, like, been into you for two years, right?”

The cap slips, falls. Holster doesn’t catch it before it hits the ground. 

“What?”

“You didn’t know that,” she observes. “Hmm.”

Holster stares at her. “He likes me?”

He’s very aware of the fact that he does, in fact, have a thing for Ransom; it’s hiding in his desk drawer next to a note that reads  _ that shirt makes your eyes blue as fuck bro. _ Ransom wasn’t — had he really, truly missed it this whole time? He doesn’t know where to look for it, their friendship had been past the bounds of any other friendship he’d ever had the moment when Shitty nicknamed them their frog year. The all-encompassing kind. 

Ransom writes him notes. Rans initiated the last three times they’ve hooked up. He was already down, no questions asked, the first time, and when he’d kissed him, it wasn’t rushed. Like Rans wanted to take his time.

“How do you know?” he asks now, and Lardo shrugs.

“I don’t, really,” she says. “It’s more of a very strong, observationally-based hunch. I’ve never asked him about it.” 

“But you’re asking me.”

She says, “You seemed like you needed to know if it was something, and I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong.”

“Oh.” Holster tries to wrap his head around that. When it’s close enough, he says, “How did you know we were—”

“You two are  _ not _ quiet,” she says, raising her eyebrows. Holster can feel his face going pink. 

Then he thinks of something. “How do you know we’re not quiet?”

“Morning sex is a bitch to wake up to.” She freezes. “Erm. Shitty told me?”

Holster grins. “Are you and Shitty finally—”

She elbows him in the stomach, and he cuts off. “This isn’t about me.”

“No, it’s about the millions of dollars in fines you two owe,” he says.

“You don’t fine me, I don’t fine you,” she says. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

They shake on it.

“Good,” she says, and the locker room door opens. She cuts her eyes toward it before saying, “Go figure your shit out.”

He knows it’s Ransom before Rans speaks from the way the earth moves under his feet.

“What shit?” Ransom asks. 

Lardo jerks her head toward Holster. “Ask him,” she says.

They watch her walk away. After a beat, Rans turns to him.

“What shit?” he asks.

Holster sighs. “I think we should take a walk.”

____________

They run into Bitty, and then Dex, and then literally every goddamn person they know until finally Holster’s smushed against Rans in a booth at Jerry’s with practically their whole team crowded around them, talking so loud Holster has to close his eyes to deal with the headache that’s building in his brain. 

He’s been this close to Rans before they started — whatever it is they’re doing, but it’s one thing to know what Rans feels like and tastes like, and it’s a totally different thing to know that while thinking, maybe, Rans has been in love with him this whole time. It’s entirely different to have to pretend he doesn’t know and that they haven’t been hooking up while surrounded by all their friends.

Rans seems quiet on the way back to the Haus. Holster thinks he keeps glancing at him, maybe wondering why Holster was so nonverbal at lunch, but he can’t properly formulate words right now.

He owes it to him to try. “Sorry, can we just,” Holster says, sighing. He stops on the steps and Ransom holds out his hand. Holster takes it. “Can we shelve that for now?”

“Whatever you need,” Ransom says softly. 

It sounds like he’s saying  _ everything, I’ll give you everything. _ There is too much showing on Ransom’s face right now: worry held tight in the corners of his mouth; a hint of sleepiness and longing for a post-lunch nap hiding in his eyebrows; a lot of affection in his eyes. Possibly even a bit of love tucked there, too. 

He thinks that love’s been there for awhile now. He hadn’t been looking for it before, but it’s impossible to miss when they’re face to face like this.

Holster wonders what Rans is seeing in his own face. 

“I didn’t do what you told me,” he says. It sticks in his throat. 

“What do you mean,” Ransom says, frowning. 

Holster wants to rub away that line between his eyebrows. He tugs on the strings of his hoodie instead, taking his hand back. Just in case Rans doesn’t want to be touching him when he says this. But that wouldn’t be the case, right? Not seeing what he does. And this — this wants to be said.

“When we talked this out,” he says. “At the beginning, do you remember what you told me?”

“About Flo Rida?”

He shakes his head. “After that.”

“We talked about one night stands,” Ransom says slowly. “And getting tested. And—” His eyes widen like he just fell off a step. “And I told you not to fall in love with me.”

“Yeah,” Holster whispers. “That.”

“Oh,” Ransom says. It’s more of a breath than a sound. “Are you—?”

Holster nods, watching the love grow in Ransom’s eyes. He is all at once on the verge of crying, and that feels ridiculous, and yet. This whole time, he hadn’t been  _ seeing _ what was right in front of him. 

“I didn’t think,” Rans starts, then stops. “You were talking about seeing other people, I didn’t think this was something you wanted.”

“It was more to give you the option,” Holster says quietly. “I didn’t think you’d want to keep doing this, you know? Thought it’d be a one-off. But now—”

He extends his hand, and when Ransom takes it, he leads him into their room. Holster reaches around him to close the door.

“Now?” Ransom whispers.

Now Holster settles his hands on Ransom’s waist. Ransom slowly wraps his arms around Holster’s neck, taking his time to trace a path up Holster’s side and over his shoulders and collarbones. 

“I was thinking,” Holster says, “maybe — this?”

____________

It’s not even close to being the first time they’ve kissed. Holster knows by now that if he sucks Ransom’s bottom lip and then bites gently it’ll result in Rans gasping and turning his head, inviting Holster to kiss his neck. He knows now that, if he teases Ransom’s abs and that V at his hips, Ransom will pull his own shirt off and then take off Holster’s. But he also knows from the way Ransom’s kisses slow and level out that Rans is still tired, so he doesn’t do any of that.

“I just want you to know I intend to do this for awhile,” he says, “if you’ll let me. But not right now.”

“Not right now?” Ransom says, poorly hiding a yawn.

Holster shakes his head. “Nope. Right now I think it’s nap time. What do you think about that?”

Ransom says, “I think that’s great if you don’t hog the blankets again,” and Holster pretends to be offended before promising not to, and Ransom says something like  _ you really can’t say shit about it you know you always do, _ and they lie down. 

It’s not the first time they’ve done this either, but it is the first time Holster whispers, “And you were right. I’m in love with you.”

He feels Ransom hum. “I’m in love with you, too,” he says softly. “I wasn’t sure that this was something I could hope for.”

Holster traces a circle on Rans’ hipbone. “And now?”

“Now I’m wondering how I got so lucky.”

His words melt some invisible strain of tension in Holster’s shoulders. He presses a kiss to Ransom’s shoulderblade. It strikes him in a gentle sort of way that they’ll probably wake up together. They didn’t usually do that, before.

“That makes two of us.”

____________

Holster wakes up alone but when he sits up, a note flutters off his forehead. It says:  _ Showering. Annie’s in forty? Seems like we’re overdue for a date. _

He smiles at it.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Pls lemme know what you think in the comments below or [come find me on Tumblr :)](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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